Soen: Origin Story
by mr.awesome333c
Summary: The origin story of the son of Shoto Aizawa and Emi Fukukado. After a villain attack he was twisted by grief and tragedy until he became the monster his parents hunt. This is quite literally the first story I've written purely for myself so please offer an constructive criticism you might have. Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy!


As Shota jumped from rooftop to rooftop, he was thankful for the warmth that his capture scarf provided in order to help stave off the cold of the November night. Finding a perch with a good vantage point, he decided to rest for a moment in order to survey his surroundings and to collect his thoughts. He smiled gently, an expression that his face was still quite uncostume to, as he thought about his wife at home and the warm meal that was no doubt waiting for him after his patrol ended in an hour. After finally agreeing to go on a data with the ever persistent Mrs. Joke, Shota realized just how much he enjoyed her company and the next time that she jokingly proposed, the Erasure Hero found himself having to catch himself before he said yes. Of course after several months of dating he finally slipped up and agree to marry her. Now 22 years later, and happily married, Shota was starting to seriously consider retirement from the hero business and spending the rest of his time with his family. Even at the age of 53, Shota was still at the top of his game and still was a force of nature when it came to capturing villains, but was starting to feel the consequences of his hero livestyle every time he came home to Emi's worrying and his aching back. However, all of these thoughts were immediately filed away as someone had caught Shota's attention. A tall man, wearing a long black trench coat and a white medical mask wasn't the most unusual thing to see, however seeing someone in that attire at 10 o'clock at night in a particularly seedy part of town was something of a suspicious occurrence to the Erasure Hero and he decided to follow the man and see what he intended to do that night.

After following the man for a while, Shota was certain that this man was up to something. Going from building to building, entering for five minutes and leaving. After keeping track of every building the man had visited, Shota decided to report in to his agency with the information he had gathered up to that point, including a description of the man and the locations of the buildings he had visited and that the hero planned on confronting the trench coat clad man. After his agency confirming his report, Shota donned his signature goggles, dropped down to street level behind the man, and asked him,

"Might I ask you what is it you're doing at this time of night?"

The man stopped walking but didn't turn to face the hero and neglected to answer his question.

"I'll only repeat myself one more time. What is it you're doing at this time of night in this section of town? There's no resendational district here and you've been seen entering several suspicious buildings. So again, what are you doing?"

The man then turned to face the hero, but still didn't answer the question poised. Instead he pulled the pin on the flashbang grenade he had in his hand and tossed it at the Erasure Hero. Even with his advancing age, Shota had no difficulty reacting by squeezing his eyes shut before the grenade exploded with light and sound, however he was unable to cover his ears in time and the defining ringing permitted through his skull dulling both his movements and senses. As his adrenal system raced into overtime Eraser Head opened his eyes just in time to see the villain rushing him with crushing right hook to his temple. Getting knocked to the side, Shota raised his arms to guard against the next flurry of jabs from his assailant. Jumping back and using his capture scarf he attempted to try and restrict the villain. However the masked man slashed the end of the scarf to ribbons with a small silver pocket knife in his left hand, and in his right hand he leveled a snub nosed 44. at Eraser Head and fired twice at his chest. Still with his hearing dysfunctional Shota couldn't hear the shots but was able to twist his body as to avoid the two bullets but the moment he dedicated to the movement, the villain shot again, this time at Eraser's knee. And this time, the hero could not avoid the shot. With his left knee blown completely out, the hero screamed and collapsed onto the cold pavement on the alley, with the pain in both his knee and ears screaming and wailing respectively. As the hero tried to stand back up onto his feet, again the villain fired into the hero, this time shattering the other knee. As Eraser Head came to the realization that there was no hope in his situation he grabbed the walkie talkie of his waist in an attempt to radio for help from any nearby heroes. As he squeezed the talk button he hissed into the walkie, but something was wrong. As his hearing was starting to return to him Erasure Head came to a frightening realization as he attempted to call for help. He couldn't speak. He could stretch his vocal and move his mouth just like he would always do, but no sound was made. _His quirk? _The hero thought. As he tried to get up again, the villain started to stride towards the incapacitated hero, shaking his head, causing the black mop on his head to quiver.

"How fucking predictable. You always back up and use your scarf. You taught Brainstorm the same thing." The villain chuckled a dry laugh,"And here I thought that finally killing you would be something I would look forward to." The villain rasped out, his voice scratchy and clearly either not used to talking or too used to screaming. As the villain stopped, standing over Shota, his dark green eyes seemed to twinkle with an idea. "But who's to say that we can't still enjoy ourselves? What do you say, Shota Aizawa?" Under his medical mask, the villain's mouth twisted into a cruel smile.

Behind his goggles the hero's eyes widened and his mouth dropped. He tried to ask "_How?_" But no sound escaped. As the twisted sneer widened, the man pulled another grenade from his trench coat along with a gas mask. Putting on the device, the white X taped across the mouth laughed at the futility of the heroes actions. Pulling the pin on the grenage, a yellow smoke started to spray out. The villain then put the gas spewing canasted into the hero's face.

"Breath deep. Don't worry, I won't kill you in your sleep. That'll be too easy for you."

As Shota's concionceness started to slip away, he saw the villain take out a cell phone from his jacket pocket and dial a number.

"Giran it's me. I need a warp, I'll send you the coordinates..."

...sleep finally overpowered the hero.

Bound and in darkness.

_No, I'm blind folded._

As Shota finally came back into concessioness, his hero training took into effect. Trying to figure out his situation, location, and condition. But before any of that could be addressed, Shota remembered what the villain had told him.

_How? How does he know who I am? I've made sure my identity was protected, how does he know? Was he from my past? He seemed so familiar; those eyes, I know I've seen them before. But where? Giran? Is he a member of the new league? If he knows who I am, does that mean he's going to go after Emi or Eri? Does the League know my identity? Shit, I need to get out of here. Where do I know him from?! SHIT!_

As Shota's mind raced into overdrive, his entire concessions abruptly halted and focused on something, a sound just barely louder than a pin drop. But in the silent room, the quiet breath was as loud the the hero as a gunshot. Knowing that this situation would be better if the villain didn't know that the hero was awake, Shota tried to relax his rigid body before he villain noticed however...

"Hey," The voice of the villain asked, his voice less raspy than before, "You awake? Though I saw you squirm." A moment passed. "No? Hurry up then, geez. Don't just keep me waiting."

Shota's mind raced, trying to find a way to escape his confinement. But just as he started to form a plan...

"Yeah, you're awake. You can stop pretending now."

_Shit_

"What do you want from me?" The Hero asked.

"What do I want? That's a boring question, I figured you already knew that."

Again, that voice. It was so familiar but Shota couldn't place it. "Why don't you enlighten me then? What. Do. You. What?" Shota spat.

"What I **WANT **is for you to listen and understand. But before that I want you to promise me something, when I take off the blindfold you won't erase my quirk. I soundproofed the room and I would hate to kill whoever heard you. See we're borrowing somebody's attic and I feel like it would be… improper to disrupt their happy lives with something as gruesome…" The man seemed to gestured to the hero."...as this."

"...Fine" After Shota reluctantly agreed, he felt hands on the side of his head untie the blind fold and then felt it dropping around his neck.

Panic instantly set in, as Shota stared at the walls of his own attic. The familiar artifacts ingraining themselves in his memory. The training equipment, the crib, and the Christmas boxes to mention but a few.

"You BASTARD!" To say his voice was rage filled was an understatement.

"You can yell all you like, I really don't mind, but if I step into your line of sight and you erase my quirk then I'll have to shoot you AND your wife. And I'd hate to be the one who does that. And honestly you should be thanking me, I'm the one pumping you full of painkillers so you aren't screaming, because if you haven't noticed; your knee insides are on the outside and that looks painful as fuck. And without those lovely little needles we wouldn't even be able to have this pleasant conversation."

A quick glance down at the grisly sight was enough to confirm what the villain had said was true, with his mangled and twisted knees having several needles sticking out of each of them.

"Fine, I won't attack you." Shota managed through gritted teeth.

"Good to hear, and I'm pretty sure you're going to want to hear what I have to say."

As the villain stepped out from behind Shota and turned around to face the broken hero still wearing the gas mask and accenting it with a hoodie pulled over his eyes, hiding his face. "How rude of me! Let me take this off." With a mocking note the man first took the mask off. And once that was stacked safely in his jacket he pulled his hood down to reveal his face...

And everything make sense. _The voice, the quirk, everything. Oh my god, it's him_.

Two years into their marriage, Shota and Emi were blessed with a child. A boy they named Shijima. He was born into a family that loved him and cared for him. And the boy idolized his hero parents, always believing that no matter what the situation was they would be there and would save everyone, and as much as his parents disliked this unrealistic idealism they couldn't bring themselves to tell the child otherwise and alongside his sister Eri would idolized heros and was never taught the mortality that heros embodied, that they are only human. And one day when the ten year old child was at home with his mother and sister, a villain attacked and his world view that heros were infallibly was shattered into pieces. The man sought retribution for the past when the now retired Mrs Joke captured him. And while she managed to again subdue the villain, it wasn't before he nearly killed her and her two children. Shijima was the worst out of them, having stood up to the villain only to be back handed through three walls and buried under a pile of rubble. Before this, Shijima had yet to manifest his quirk and was presumed to actually be quirkless,but as his blood splattered over every inch of the pile of rubble he wanted to hide from the villian and the pain he caused, and so he subconsciously banished the idea of sound from every thing his blood covered, even the rubble he was buried under, constructing his silent tomb. For 6 hours he screamed and screamed until he tore a hole in his lungs and permanently scarred his vocal cords, trying to get the heroes to come and help him but no one could hear his desperate cries for help. After 7 hours he passed out from blood loss, and 10 hours later, the construction crew responsible for cleaning up the debris of the villain attack found the young boy; broken, bloody, and traumatized. As he was transported to the hospital, the last sections of his conscious mind pleaded and begged just to see his father, for him to come and say that everything was going to be ok. But this plea fell on deaf ears, as his father, ever the hero, was working in Europe at the time helping dismantle a criminal operation and would not hear about the situation until two days later. And in those two day, Shijima condition spiraled out of control as the physical trauma reduced him to a husk of a person, the mental trauma of see his mother and sister attacked and hanging on for life, and the emotional trauma of knowing that his father, his hero, could have saved them. He could have protected his family. But when they needed a hero, he had abandoned them. His mind snapped, the weight of everything that had happened finally overcoming his resilience. After his third day in the hospital, as his father was flying back to Japan, Shijima had recovered enough to walk out of the doors and was never to be seen again.

"Looks like you recognize me." Shijima said, looking at the hero's shattered expression with no small amount of smugness.

"How?" the hero asked, the shock of the situation short circuiting his brain, leaving him unable to answer even simple questions like..."Why?"

"Because, I learned something that day. Ten years ago I learned the hero's are something that people can't rely on, and that if you do, that belief will only be kicked out from underneath you. I learned that the only way to protect society is to eliminate its biggest threat, and that's you. You who lie and say that nothing bad will happen now that **I Am Here**. All of you, from Gale Force to Deku to Ground Zero and everyone in between, you need to be taken out of the equation."

"But without heroes, society would turn into chaos" Shota argued, still shocked at the arrival of his presumed dead son.

"Not my issue, what _society_ wants to do after heros are wiped out isn't my concern. I'm like a surgeon, if I amputate your leg in don't really care how much physical therapy you need to walk again. But it's my job to remove the blight from the body, and that's what you heros are." His eyes said the whole story, as dark and hard as an obsidian razor.

Seeing the young man reverently resigned to his ideas, Shota came to the conclusion that anymore argument would simply be a waste of time. "So, what now? Are you going to kill me?" Even as he uttered the words the hero felt dead inside, having to ask his own son that question.

"No, not yet." The villain said with the hint of a grin starting to grow on his face, "I want you to do what you do best, nothing. I want you to sit and watch as I end hero society as the world knows it and I want you to desperately want to help but be unable to. I want you to become a ten year old kid, stuck under a mountain or rubble, screaming for his daddy...and for no one to come."

As Shota looked into the eyes of the man in front of him he finally realized that his son was dead. That ten years ago the child had been buried alive and that from the rubble rose a monster of a man. And this realization crushed his shattered heart into dust.

The following next three hours were spent torturing, mangling, and otherwise reducing Shota Aizawa from the pro hero Erasure Head into a husk of what remained. The villain made certain that not even his older sisters quirk could reverse what had been done. And as a final gift, the boy carved his new name into the heaving chest of his father. As the villain left, he spotted his old stereo and decided to leave his victim with some music before his life as he knows it ends. After finding an old favorite of his and plugging the old machine in he listened for a moment.

"_I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel__. I focus on the pain, the only thing that's real."_

As he climbed out of the window, the villain though about what he had done. And how he could never go back to his old life now.

"_The needle tears a hole, the old familiar sting. Try to kill it all away, but I remember everything."_

He thought about how it felt, to finally get the revenge he longed for for 10 years. How it felt to finally hurt the man who betrayed him and his family.

"_What have I become, my sweetest friend? Everyone I know, goes away in the end."_

And he realized that this was just the start, that from now on he would hunt every hero he came across. And as he disabled his quirk as he crossed the street, he listened to the screams and music that spilled from the attic into the night. He turned and watched through the window as his mother rushed up the stairs just to see the carnage.

"_And you could have it all, my empire of dirt. I will let you down, I will make you hurt."_

As he turned his back to the screams of his mother and father and walked into the night; he turned the key to his heart and threw the key into the deepest recesses of his shattered psyche. From this day forward, Shijima Aizawa from finally lowered into his grave and buried. And from the rubble of that attack ten years ago rose Soen, the man that would bring hero society to their knees.


End file.
